A Nebraska-based real estate company has acquired about 35 acres in West Dallas.
Local development firm West Dallas Investments (WDI), known for the Trinity Groves restaurant park, recently sold more than half of its 60-acre West Dallas portfolio to Nebraska-based Goldenrod Companies, The Dallas Morning News reported.
The land purchase includes roughly 90 properties near Singleton Boulevard, consisting primarily of commercial and industrial buildings, with several “troubled” residential structures, according to a 2016 study by the Urban Land Institute.
When WDI’s Phil Romano, Stuart Fitts, and Larry “Butch” McGregor first began acquiring land in 2005, the cost in West Dallas was just $2.50 a square foot. However, by 2016, the same square footage was selling for over $30 per square foot, according to the study.
“When more vertical development is feasible in the later mixed-use phases, land will be valued as high as $100 or more per square foot for the early deals and may climb higher” for later deals, given the success and “assemblage of many diverse parcels,” Romano said at the time of the study.
Fitts shared this same sentiment before the study’s release, telling D Magazine in 2013 that “With the Ballpark, Cowboys Stadium, the horse track, DFW and Alliance [airports], common sense just said, in order to expand the city of Dallas’ tax base, you have to expand west.”
“So, we said, What the hell, we’ll just start buying land out there and we’ll hold it. It’s already at the bottom of the barrel. It had no place to go but up,” Fitts told D Magazine.
WDI’s amassing of land in West Dallas at such early stages and low costs allowed the Dallas-based firm to benefit heavily from the sale to Goldenrod Companies.
WDI “did a great job assembling the land and getting favorable entitlements in place for the future redevelopment of Trinity Groves,” said Brandon Schubert, director of investments for Goldenrod’s Dallas division, D Magazine reported.
While Goldenrod Companies says it has big plans for the area, none are set in stone. The firm will work closely with local community members and the design firm OJB on a master plan that includes a mixed-use community with multifamily apartments, retail, offices, and a pedestrian walkway, according to initial plans presented to the City.
“We are very bullish on the growth of West Dallas over the next decade and look forward to creating a dynamic and well thought out live-work-play neighborhood,” said Schubert, per reporting from D Magazine.